Over the last few years there has been a very substantial demand for portable electric heaters which can be moved from room to room in a house or building. Some of these heaters operate using radiant or convection heating techniques. In addition there are many newly designed portable heaters which operate using a fan heater and these fan type heaters have been particularly well suited for the most up to date molding techniques which has resulted in even more compact constructions adding to the portability of the fan heater.
One noticeable drawback resulting from the most recent fan heater constructions as described immediately above is that they are very localized in terms of direction of air flow from the heater, i.e. the hot air is blown in one direction only and because the heaters themselves are quite small this limits the area covered by the heater.
I have earlier developed an oscillating louvre arrangement for use in a fan construction as covered in Canadian Pat. No. 1,130,251 issued Aug. 24, 1982 and it's counterpart corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,394 issued Mar. 20, 1984. The specific modular construction from my earlier fan is also covered by Canadian Pat. No. 1,169,828 issued June 26, 1984. The concept of movable louvres as described in the above noted patents would provide substantially increased heat coverage when used in combination with a heater fan. However, it is important that the gearing used to drive the louvre blades should not be affected by heat buildup within the heater fan particularly in view of the potential of using lightweight plastics in the construction of this gearing.